The home audio industry places great emphasis on convenience and sound quality. In-wall audio speakers are at the height of their popularity. While floor speakers may, at times, provide comparable sound quality, the aesthetic appeal of in-wall speakers and their ability to deliver high-quality sound without the need to rearrange one's living room to make space for the speakers, have created a significant demand for quality in-wall speakers that deliver the hi-fidelity sound of floor speakers.
Unfortunately, once in-wall speakers are mounted in a wall, they cannot simply be turned to redirect the sound as can be done with floor speakers without a great deal of effort and expense. One possible solution to such a dilemma is to make the in-wall speaker movable, so that the sound emanating from the speaker can be redirected without repositioning the entire speaker assembly. Such speakers, however, face a number of inherent difficulties. For instance, a speaker designed to allow sound drivers to rotate may inhibit the sound emanating from the sound drivers, thereby causing diffraction of the sound waves. In particular, when the surface of the mount in which the speaker is embedded rotates, a portion of the mount protrudes from the surface of the baffle, while, naturally the opposing portion recedes within and below the surface of the baffle. Sound emanating from the sound driver is reflected by the inner "wall" created by the receding portion of the mount. This reflection causes diffraction of the sound waves resulting in lower quality of sound reproduction.
Another problem that arises when a speaker's sound components are rotated is that while one sound component can be rotated in one direction, the other components are either unable to be rotated, or are rotated separately, therefore resulting in the speaker's sound components being on different planes with one another. This results in sound waves arriving at its destination, the listener's ear, at different times, resulting in distortion. Therefore, although speakers may exist with a rotating sound driver component, these speakers do not take into account the difficulties created when only one sound driver is re-oriented without the ability to reorient any of the other sound drivers. Even if the other sound drivers could be adjusted, there would still be the likelihood of different planes as manual adjustments to each sound driver, separately, include inherent imperfections.
Previous attempts have been made to provide speakers with rotating components to direct sound for optimal listening such as are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,402,502, to Boothroyd et al. (the '502 patent); U.S. Pat. No. 5,400,407, to Cassity et al. (the '407 patent); U.S. Pat. No. 5,133,428, to Perrson (the '428 patent); U.S. Pat. No. 4,917,212, to Iwaya (the '212 patent); U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,655, to Freadman et al. (the '655 patent); U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,406, to Kawachi (the '406 patent); U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,019, to Ando (the '019 patent); U.S. Pat. No. 4,553,630, to Ando (the '630 patent); U.S. Pat. No. 4,445,228, to Bruni (the '228 patent); U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,577, to Kurihara (the '577 patent); U.S. Pat. No. 4,139,734, to Fincham (the '734 patent); U. S. Pat. No. 4,182,429, to Senzaki. (the '429 patent); and U.S. Pat. No. 3,976,838 to Stallings, Jr., (the '838 patent), each of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The '502 patent describes a sound output system comprised of a baffle, a plurality of sound drivers, and a sound mirror. The sound mirror reflects a beam of sound from the sound driver horizontally and vertically while maintaining a generally consistent amplitude.
The '407 patent describes a tilt adjuster for a speaker which adjusts the position of a speaker recessed in a wall. The tilt-adjuster, preferably assembled with a speaker cover, is a wedge-shaped frame with an open central portion for receiving the speaker housing; a front side including a flattened perimeter for making abutting engagement with the speaker's housing; and a back side which attaches to the speaker's support frame.
The '428 patent shows a direction-adjustable speaker system comprised of a sound driver disposed within a rotatable mount positioned within a housing. The mount swivels within the housing to direct the sound to a desired location.
The '212 patent describes a speaker supporting unit which includes a base and a substantially disc-shaped spacer. The spacer includes a half-round groove through which a screw can be inserted to secure the spacer to the base. The first surface of the spacer, which determines the orientation of the speaker is determined by a combination of the inclined surface of the base and the second surface of the spacer, which is varied by the relative angle between the base and the spacer.
The '655 patent describes a speaker cabinet having a pair of front wall segments adjacent to the ends of the cabinet, an intermediate forwardly opening cavity extending between the upper and lower front wall segments, a pair of large subwoofer speakers in the upper and lower front wall segments, and a swiveled movable center subcabinet having a woofer, mid-range speaker and a pair of tweeters. The subcabinet has a range of swivel movement horizontally about a vertical axis.
The '406 patent describes a compound speaker system comprising a woofer, a squawker, a tweeter, and a super tweeter. The squawker, tweeter and super tweeter are attached to a plate and this assembly is rotatably positioned within the cone of the woofer. The system can be designed where the tweeter and super tweeter are at an elevated position with respect to the squawker when the assembly is rotated within the cone of the woofer.
The '630 patent describes a speaker with a tweeter angle adjusting device. The tweeter can change direction by use of horizontal and vertical adjusting knobs and which are secured to horizontal shaft and vertical shafts, respectively, through the use of interlocking mechanisms.
The '228 patent shows a stereo audio system for a motorcycle including a housing for a radio receiver and speaker-mirror assemblies, mounted on base-socket assemblies, and threaded over mounting posts screwed into holes in the handlebars.
The '577 patent describes a direction-variable speaker system for car-audio devices comprising two speaker cases containing speaker units for different reproduction bands, and an intermediate case interposed between the two speaker cases. A first pivotal shaft and a rising angle setting mechanism connect the first speaker case with the intermediate case. Between the second speaker case and the intermediate case is a second pivotal shaft as well as a twisting angle setting mechanism. By using the rising angle and twisting angle mechanisms, both speaker cases can be varied with respect to their angles in rising amount and twisting amount.
The '734 patent describes a pivoting loudspeaker with a plurality of enclosures, wherein at least one of the enclosures is pivotably mounted with respect to another of the enclosures, and a light emitting device which is visible through an aperture only when a listener is in correct listening position.
The '429 patent shows a loud-speaker system particularly suitable for use in car stereo systems, comprising at least a tweeter, with a woofer arranged coaxially to the tweeter wherein the tweeter is adjustably mounted to the woofer in order to allow manual regulation of the position of the tweeter to that of the woofer.
The '838 patent describes a sound reproduction system comprised of a plurality of speakers, said system being mounted in a wall.
None of the devices described in the foregoing patents overcome the inherent problems associated with rotatable speaker components. In particular, the device of the '428 patent comprises means to rotate only the tweeter component, which creates a "wall" inhibiting the sound from the rotating sound driver. The device of the '212 patent describes a speaker support unit which utilizes an angled spacer inserted between the base of the unit and the speaker to determine the orientation of the speaker. There is no rotating or pivoting mechanism. The devices of the '406 and '429 patents each provide for a swiveling "dish" which both create a "wall" to diffract the sound, and neither comprises a rotating turntable to allow for 360 degrees of clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation. Finally, the device of the '630 patent provides horizontal and vertical adjusting knobs to rotate the tweeter only, thereby creating a non-coplanar relationship between the tweeter and other components. The device of the '630 patent also lacks a rotating turntable, thereby inhibiting the tweeter's range of motion.
None of the devices mentioned above describe a speaker assembly with a pivoting sub-baffle assembly comprising at least one transducer wherein the orientation of the transducers can be adjusted via rotating or pivoting means to target sound.
Consequently, there is a need in the art for a speaker assembly with a pivoting sub-baffle assembly comprising one or more transducers which can be pivoted forward and backward to direct the sound without creating a protruding wall which may cause diffraction of the sound.
There is a further need in the art to provide a speaker assembly that maintains the transducers in a coplanar relationship while they are pivoted.
There is yet a further need in the art for a speaker assembly comprising a rotatable turntable containing one or more transducers which can be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise to allow a listener to easily provide for more diverse targeting of sound.